StarTap is on my "must have" software list for Windows CE. In future articles, I will describe the many features of StartTap (beyond screen capture) that help you get the most out of your device. This month, I am going to explain the Delayed Capture feature, which is how I captured the start menu shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C

Use StarTap to capture that hard-to-capture Start Menu. Click picture for a larger image.

Delayed Capture waits four seconds before creating the screenshot. To capture the Start Menu, all you do is tap the StarTap icon in the system tray, tap the Start button, and wait for StarTap to create the screenshot -- which is indicated by a shutter sound. The screenshot file is written to the root directory in a bitmap graphics file.

In order to create screenshots with StarTap, you will have to turn on Capture. You can get to StarTap's properties from the StarTap Control Panel -- you won't find the StarTap icon in the Windows CE's Control Panel. Tap the Images tab as shown in Figure D, and check the box next to Capture. If you check View Img you can view the screenshot by using StarTap's file explorer application.

FIGURE D

Check the Capture box to create screenshots using StarTap. Click picture for a larger image.

Next tap the TB Icon tab in the StarTap Properties dialog box to associate delayed screen capture to the StarTap system tray icon. Two actions are associated with this icon: single tap and double tap. You select these from the Action drop-down list. To enable delayed capture with a single tap of the system tray icon, select Single Tap in the Action drop-down list and then select Delay Capt from the Result drop-down list. After making this change, tap the OK button to close the dialog box. To create a screenshot, first tap the system tray icon, then tap the Start button and wait for the shutter sound.

Screen capture is just one of the tools that StarTap provides. Check back soon for my explanation on using StarTap Explorer to browse files on your Palm-sized PC and view the screenshot on your device.

Frank McPherson is a Senior Information Specialist at EDS. He is a Microsoft Windows CE Most Valuable Professional, and Assistant Forum Manager of MSN's Computing Central Windows CE forum. His maintains the Windows CE Knowledge Center at http://start.at/know_ce, and he can be reached via e-mail at frank@fmcpherson.com.